The Scientist
by whimsycality
Summary: Short Polar piece that goes AU after Missing. Sequel to Poison.


**Title:** The Scientist  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing, all characters and original Roswell settings belong to very lucky people. I also do not own the title or lyrics to The Scientist by Coldplay.  
**Pairings/Couples/Category:** Polar, UC, Post Episode Season One Ficlet  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Summary: **This is the sequel to Poison and I recommend you read that first, Polar fic that goes AU after Missing.

* * *

_Come up to meet you,_

_Tell you I'm sorry,_

_You don't know how lovely you are_

He saw her sitting in her dad's truck as he walked out of the trailer park, still cursing himself for leaving her like that. Yet another misguided play by Guerin, alien boy wonder.

She was staring sightlessly at the dusty but gleaming metal structures, her hand still on the handle, ready to open the door, frozen in a moment of indecision.

She hadn't showered and her long hair was still tousled, just like it had been when it was curled around his fingers earlier that morning when he woke up on her balcony. There were faint circles under her eyes and he could see his mark on her neck, a pulse of desire threading through him at the sight. She was so beautiful and he still couldn't believe he'd touched her, held her, tasted her.

He saw the moment she registered his presence, coming out of her reverie with a start. Her large chocolate eyes widened first with surprise, then desire, and settled somewhere between happy and sad, causing his heart to clench.

"I'm sorry I left," he said quietly, stopping a foot from the side of the truck. "I wasn't…I just needed to think."

_I had to find you,_

_Tell you I need you,_

_Tell you I set you apart_

She nodded, taking in his tired and rumpled appearance, and knew he hadn't slept or showered or done anything more than she had this morning. When she woke up as she heard him climbing down the ladder, she'd had to fight the urge to call out, to tell him to wait. But she knew he needed to think and she knew she needed to as well.

Now she had thought it through, and she had come to a decision, and she was working up the courage to tell him because if he didn't come to the same decision it just might break her.

They stared at each other for a moment, not wanting to disturb the perfect silence of the calm before the storm. No, that wasn't right, it wasn't the calm before; it was the eye of a storm that had begun the night before and would rage anew when the world outside the two of them became aware of its presence.

Hesitantly she pulled on the handle and opened the door, her feet hitting the desert floor and sending small clouds of reddish brown dirt into the morning air. The truck door closed with a clang that seemed impossibly loud and she paused, hand still holding onto it as if it was a lifeline.

Gathering herself, she took a step forward at the same time he did. Those hesitant movements were all it took and then they were wrapped around each other, her head pressed against his chest and her hands wrapped around his waist as his tangled in her hair.

"I need you," she breathed.

_Tell me your secrets_

_And ask me your questions_

_Oh, let's go back to the start_

Her hair was so soft on his fingers and he could feel her lips burning against his chest through his shirt. There was so much he wanted to say, and so much he wanted to ask, but the words stuck in his throat and he just reveled in the sensation of having her in his arms, most of him still believing this was just a temporary fluke and would disappear the moment she saw Max and realized that she could have someone better than him, the angry, trailer trash reject.

"Tell me something that wasn't in your journal," he murmured into her ear, loving the way she shuddered as his breath puffed against the delicate pink shell.

"Like what?" she asked softly, her voice vibrating his chest as she tilted her chin up to look at him, eyes dark and deep and drowning, pulling him under.

"Tell me something you've never told anyone, never written down, never said out loud. Tell me something secret," he said so softly it was practically a whisper, trying to express what he wanted, what he needed. Some kind of hold on her that no one else had, so that even if she disappeared like a mirage in the afternoon sun he would always have that piece of her.

"I want you to be my first."

His heart stopped.

_Running in circles,_

_Coming up tails_

_Heads on a science apart_

As soon as she said it, she wanted to take it back. Not because it wasn't true, but because she felt him freeze, the hand circling on her back stopping instantly and his breath catching in his throat. It was too soon to say such things, too soon to think such things.

What if he didn't feel the same way? What if to him it was just a blazingly hot make out session he wanted to repeat with someone who knew his secret and didn't have the emotional baggage of her best friend? Was he going to push her away now? Say that they should pretend it never happened?

"You think too much Parker," he said in a low amused growl, layers of meaning to those five words that were all lost to her the moment his lips descended on hers and the fire blazed back to life; his mouth was hot wet silk and oh so addicting.

Her circular thoughts ceased and every fear that they were too different, that the situation had no happy ending, disappeared under the heat of his passion, floating away from her with a low throbbing moan.

The analytical, scientific, part of her brain tried to calculate how much pleasure one could experience before you died of sensory overload.

The rest of her knew it would be worth it.

_Nobody said it was easy,_

_It's such a shame for us to part._

_Nobody said it was easy._

_No one ever said it would be this hard._

_Oh take me back to the start._

Reluctantly he pulled away, his breath coming in ragged pants as the haze of passion fogged his mind. There wasn't enough time to get lost in her arms, her warmth, her silken lips. They had school to get to, Topolsky to deal with, and last but most certainly not least, their friends.

Max was going to kill him. Slowly, and painfully, and part of him knew he deserved it. Max and Liz might not be officially together but he knew the other boy considered her to be his, and knowing that his pseudo brother was the one to take her away would not go over well.

There wasn't any doubt that he was taking her away though, not after the seven words she had whispered as she stared directly into his eyes, words that still shook him to his core. Words that changed everything.

It was hard to take his attention from her lips, swollen and red from their encounter with his own. Her small pink tongue darted out to moisten them and he groaned, not touching her until they figured out what to do was going to be far too hard.

Just thinking about the confrontation and the myriad ways it could go wrong made him want to go back to last night, where it was just her and him and the sizzling fire they created together.

Perfection.

_I was just guessin',_

_At numbers and figures_

_Pullin' the puzzle apart_

The look in his eyes was primal and fierce and it stirred things low in her body. She could feel a flush staining her cheeks and watched as his gaze followed it down her throat to the curves of her breasts, the top swells just visible over the scoop neckline of her shirt.

No matter that this thing between them had only physically begun the night before, she found herself craving the final step of the journey. Waiting had never seemed so difficult.

Stepping back from him she left her hand resting on his chest, just over his heart. "We need to deal with Topolsky and then we're telling them." The words were a statement, not a question, and yet doubt lingered in her mind. Did he want this, did he want them, to stay a secret?

What had driven him to her arms? She knew why she wanted him; the passion, the fire, the depth that she knew he hid from the world, even those closest to him. All of those things and more made her crave Michael Guerin. What was it about her that made him throw caution to the wind and show up on her balcony like sex incarnate?

She flushed again and saw his eyebrow rise.

Damn him for being such an irresistible puzzle.

_Questions of science,_

_Science and progress,_

_Do not speak as loud as my heart_

It both pleased and bothered him that she had thought the same thing he had; that the crisis of Topolsky needed to be dealt with before they dropped this bomb on their friends, just in case the group imploded. It pained him but he was sure Isabel would side with Max and Maria would side with Liz and their already shaky cohesion would dissolve under the pressure.

It also bothered him that he could see the sliver of doubt in her eyes that he might not want to tell the others. It bothered him that she doubted how proud he was that she chose him, how much part of him wanted to throw his normal caution and secrecy to the wind and shout from the rooftops that Liz Parker wanted him, Michael Guerin, and that he wanted her back. Despite how terrifying it was that she already seemed to know him so well.

That particular action wasn't possible, so instead he pulled her back into his arms, lips molding to hers, tongue teasing its way into her mouth, teeth gently grazing as he swallowed her moan and tried to show her just how much he wanted this, wanted her, wanted them.

_Tell me you love me,_

_Come back and haunt me_

_Oh, what a rush to the start_

Liz had never considered herself a particularly sexual being before this. Kyle certainly wouldn't, given the numerous times she'd turned down his advances to go further than she was ready. But melting into Michael's embrace, feeling his calloused hands slide down her arms, burning under the weight of his lips, and tasting the spicy tang that was uniquely him convinced her that deep inside she'd been hiding a succubus who had been dying to get out.

Another breathy moan left her lips as he broke for air and moved his mouth down her throat and she flushed with pure wanton desire. Their actions last night had haunted her dreams and she wondered how she was expected to get through a school day without taking him on a convenient desk and demanding that he sate the fire he'd set ablaze under her skin.

That thought sent a surprising rush of arousal straight to her core and she flushed again as she realized that some small part of her was turned on at the thought of everyone seeing her do just that, claim Michael Guerin as her own in the most public and passionate way possible.

Maybe once they'd told everyone…

_Runnin' in circles,_

_Chasin' our tails._

_Comin' back as we are_

When his mouth began to move lower of its own accord, heading towards the sweet swells of skin beneath her shirt, he stopped himself, not quite able to pull away but managing to not go further as he panted into the side of her neck.

No matter how rational he tried to be, how much he tried to focus on their extenuating circumstances, the lure of her supple satin skin and full pink lips always managed to undo his control and send them back into a downward spiral of lust.

Almost roughly, he finally pulled away from her and walked several steps in the other direction, trying to regain his composure and convince every last stubborn part of his body that this couldn't happen, not now.

Not quite looking at her in a vain attempt to suppress the urge to ravish her against the fading blue truck, he ground out "I'll see you at school and we'll figure out what to do about Topolsky, then the others."

He saw her nod out of the corner of his eyes and risked one heated glance in her direction, absorbing every mussed, flustered, damn sexy inch of her, before turning and striding back towards the trailer and the man inside who could instantly kill any semblance of good mood or sex drive.

Who knew Hank was good for something after all.

_Nobody said it was easy,_

_Oh it's such a shame for us to part_

_Nobody said it was easy,_

_No one ever said it would be so hard._

_I'm goin' back to the start_

Liz watched him walk away, heading towards the trailer he slept in, but she somehow knew he didn't call home, and felt her knees weakening. Somewhere between that bullet entering her body and the first time she saw Max walk away from her after saying that they were too different she had changed.

It wasn't being healed and it wasn't learning that they were alone in the universe. Those were things she could accept once she had science and logic to fall back on. It wasn't even falling for Max when she was with Kyle. That too was expected, a logical outcome of having a mysterious dark haired boy save your life. It was practically cliché.

Facing down the three of them in that alley and feeling the spark that leapt towards her when she first met Michael's fierce, whiskey colored gaze might have been the first moment. Or when she realized that she seemed to care more about what happened to Michael than his own 'brother' did. The moment he returned her journal had definitely been a turning point, quite possibly the pebble that made the building avalanche inevitable.

Complicated, that was supposedly her and Max. What was complicated about hero worship and personal hang-ups that amounted to masochism? No one who'd had a glimpse of Michael Guerin's shadowed inner psyche would ever call anything else complicated ever again.

Now that she had, she knew she couldn't turn away, but despite the passion that still simmered beneath her skin at the thought of the way he touched her, looked at her, said her name, part of her was desperately afraid. Complicated wasn't part of the plan, complicated didn't always bow to logic, and this was one situation where she knew science would fail her at every turn.

It really was time to follow her heart, but oh ignoring her mind had never seemed so hard.

Or so worth it.


End file.
